I rather enjoy both of them fairly equally. Turn based tends to have it's peaks about it, but if you're determined to reach the maximum level - it can tend to feel tedious for myself after a few hours.. Whereas open world battles are a bit more free flowing, yet still pause-able... So for the meantime, I am somewhat leaning more toward the latter..

Though, it could just be the feeling that it's new - and that I haven't gotten sick of it yet.

turn based. tho i really like rogue glaxy and star ocean 3

Turn based isnt all that bad, it's the random encounter systems that suck.

Might I also add that it's more than possible to add creativity to turn-based battles. Look at Chrono Trigger, Atelier Iris 2, etc...

Final Fantasies should be Final Fantasies and Dragon Quests should be Dragon Quests. If the developers want to go make a game that's like Seiken Densetsu, then they should make a new Seiken Densetsu game, not make a Seiken Densetsu game and then brand it as a Final Fantasy game.

turn

@ not a final fantasy gamer, eh? Behemoth is also one of the most common enemies in the late levels since the SNES

I love both. However, I tend to have more fun with turn-based games on handheld systems, and action style ones on consoles.

I like both. I'm not crazy picky about most RPGs.

Turn based FTW. Making battles full-on action takes every ounce of strategy out them.

I really liked the way KOTR did it, where it was all real time, but you could pause if you needed to execute a series of different commands. It allowed for one to sit back for easy battles, but really use strategy for the more difficult ones.

I agree with masamunecyrus and Ignignokt.
A good (i.e., fun, challenging) turn-based system is great if it's designed the right way, and I don't think FF has done that since FFVI. Part of the challenge comes from having to quickly decide what the best action will be for a particular turn as you navigate the menus. For the last few FF's, each character has an optimal attack that you can just choose over and over to win, making the battles stale, as Ignignokt said.

While XII is a good game, and Ive ended up liking it, it just feels too much like I'm playing an MMO and not Final Fantasy (say what you want but FFXI is NOT FF).

I liked the battle system in FFX the most out of all of the games because it leaned heavily toward strategy by allowing you to switch character without penalty and not having the ATB system.

What has made me angry about XII is that strategy just seems stale, get a tank out there, put like 4 buffing spells on him and hack away at the boss or mark you're fighting. I doubt many gamers use gambits for anything more than auto-healing party members, despite some of the eloquent setups you can make with them.

Its a trade-off, but Id personally just rather not feel like I'm playing a single player MMO. On a side note of great RPGs that might get fucked up, I hope to god Bethsada keeps Fallout 3's battle system as close as it can to that of Fallout 2 and 1, I'm gonna shit a brick if its Oblivion with post-nuke models.

I think turn based is alright but I find them pretty boring these days. I prefer action or a combination of both, like KOTOR (my all-time favourite RPG) I love turn based strategy games though, Civ FTW! Speaking of strategy games, I've noticed there are relatively few posts about them around here. In fact, there are more posts about Lego products than Command & Conquer 3 (3), Supreme Commander (1), Medieval 2: Total War, Civ IV, Europa Universalis III, Battle for Middle Earth 1&2 Heroes of Might and Magic V, Company of Heroes, Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War, Warhammer Mark of Chaos, Dominions 3: The Awakening, 1701A.D., AOE III, Galactic Civilizations 2 or any other good strategy game out there. And BTW, the combined total of posts about every game past Supreme Commander is zero. WTF?

Don't get me wrong, I love Destructoid, but where's the love for the strategy games? How can you be a "hardcore" gaming blog if you just stick to mainstream stuff and obscure Japanese games for dead consoles and never mention any decent strategy games?

Action all the way!! I haven t played turn based since FF VII

I got to thinking a little bit ago...

Why have they not attempted to make a true mixture?.... Take Final Fantasy 7's battle system... Make it look like the game currently does *13 that be*... And make the game seemingly Action styled.... No pauses..

If the player so wishes to have a turn-based battle. They can turn it on - and every time the action meter fills, the game sort of pauses in mid action to allow you to enter a command you so wish...

This way it acts more like a 'realistic' battle environment with the Action oriented RPG's.. As well as the turn-based classic RPG..

So the visual would be something in the midst of... Cloud is attacking, Vincent is in mid firing, the action menu for Barret fills and thus - the game immediately pauses for you to enter the next command...

Anyhow, this probably isn't the place to type all this up anyhow. I apologize.

I love me some turn based battles, though only because nothing puts me to sleep faster. Seriously, without them I could hardly get a good night's sleep.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Grandia series yet. Especially since part of FF10's battle system was somewhat inspired by it; though personally I think Grandia's was better. Grandia seemed like a good turn base to me since you could plan certain attacks to stun opponents so they attack later allowing for more attack, area effect spells so you can hit the fire weak monsters with the fire spell only, and no one was standing in a line waiting to be smacked. When you chose a character to attack with a sword, they had to run up to the opponent and slice them which took time to do instead of being instant. This is what I think a good turn based system ought to be, you don't have to control every movement action style but spacial distances actually mean something.

However, I'm starting to get sick of the standard everyone line up and we take turns smacking each other type of turn based gameplay. Distance and timing need to play a bigger role then just putting archers a step back in the line formation and hopeing my healer heals at the right time.

I don't know why there is so much hate for action gameplay in RPGs, I mean the Tales of "" series has been doing action for years and the've been fun. The one thing that RPGs has had over other genres is that they are long enough to tell a complete story from start to end and made the player feel like a part of the story. I won't go so far as to say all of the stories are good because a lot of them, most definately including later FFs, are teen emo drama induced. So I don't understand why people hate the idea so much of having action play as well. As I see it, it adds gameplay to the story for an all around better experience.

Oh and I havn't played FFXII yet so I can't vouch for it.

Whoa, okay, so where to begin?

@Deus: I respect what you're saying about strategy games, but keep in mind that there are, in all honesty, about twenty-ish of us that write for the site, and only there is about five to eight of us that post every day (it's more like four).

We try to cover all the bases of gaming, but not everyone likes every type of game. Since Dtoid is, in essence, still a blog, we tend to write about what we feel passionate about. When we get someone added to the team that loves RTSs, you'll see a shitload more coverage about the genre. In the meantime, enjoy what we have going here.

As far as the matter at hand is concerned; if you're not playing an RPG that's turn based, then you're not playing an RPG. What you're playing is a story based game that has irrelevant battle sequences.

The allure of the RPG is that you have to out-think the computer (ex. in the next round, should character A heal, or fight?). If you decide incorrectly, you will lose the battle and then have to start the battle over. This level of strategy is what makes RPGs different from other games. When you turn the battle system into a pissing contest - like Tales of Symphonia or FFXI - then you lose the strategy element of the game and the game becomes, not an RPG, but something else - boring.

Seriously, who wants to sit around hitting "A" for fourty hours? With "action" RPGs, you do exactly that. You're graced with a story line that explains why you're fighting, but the act of fighting itself is an excercise in button mashing. The turn based battles of yesteryear have far much more to do with strategy, than the action battles of today.

Do y'all agree?

@Deus
I play CivIV WAY too mch myself sometimes. However I don't know of many RTS games coming so people naturally will write less about them. I could be wrong but I don't research too much into it.

@Dyson
Depends on what you mean by strategy. Most turn based turn into do this spell as much as you can and heal when you need to. Or have your healer always heal because the enemy does a lot of damage. Its occasionally mixed up with element weaknesses but those go by the way side later in the game. Games like FFT, Ogre Battle Tactics series, and Front Mission series need stategy because well, they're stategy RPG games.

Turn based works a lot like end game MMOs where you do a certain combination that works lots of times, Grandia play excaped from this somewhat. Early game Turn based style often involves more stategy while end game is more do your number 1 badass move repeatedly to win. Normal enemies around end game are just there for you to gain exp and try and use the least amount of magic as possible for when you face the boss. Its gotten so bad for the standard wait in a line fighting RPG that I can finish most at about 20 hours when everyone else says it takes 40. RPGs are not difficult; the only reason they take more time for some is because they want to earn all the easter eggs.

@Dyson

Furthar more, i must disagree with the loss of stradegy element in non-turnbased games.
Even more action orientaed games have the lement of stradegy.
i mean overall, just because the game is actionbased doesn't mean it's mindless action... many of those games still give you a wide variety of techniques and magic to use, skills which exsits for a reason. The game usually gives you ways to utilize these skills while the battle goes on.
you still have to use stradegy, but unless you pause the game, you have to deal with the things as they come up in real time.

For instance, with the Star Ocean 3, where you can still select a wide viarety of spells and use various techniques, and need to often switch up your characters skills before certain areas... how is that game any less about stradegy then the usual turnbased games?

not a FF fan more of a Legend of Zelda fan...

I can't wait to play Blue Dragon...

@ Snaileb

You and me both bro..

I'm pretty stoked for Eternal Sonata too.

That will be a different battle system, Free movement but time based, so kinda the best of both worlds

One of my closest friends is a gigantic FF nerd. The day FFXII came out, before he even opened it, he invited me over.

I was pretty excited to see the new battle system. After having to put up with the next reiteration of menstruating male characters, we finally got to a fight. And I was severely disappointed. I mean, whats up with the arcs connecting you to your target? And it just feels way too repetitive, even compared to turn-based.



No sir, I don't like it.

If I can beat FFXII without ever casting a single Black Magic spell, hardly ever make a dent in ANY of my item stashes, ever summon an Esper (save the one you HAVE to summon in order to progress through the story), or ever truly feel concerned about my ability to win a battle even on autopilot while I make a sandwich... then something is seriously flawed with the combat system.

I'm not saying that Turn Based is definitely the way to go... but let me put it to you this way. I spent over 100 hours of my life to beat FFXII...and towards the end I pretty much had to force myself to so that I didn't feel I got some of my money's worth out of the game. I beat it last weekend and promptly sold it back to a local EBGames. I'm now playing through Dark Cloud 2 (action rpg?) and I love the battle system. I also think the story is a ton better than FFXII to be honest.

Action can work just fine if done properly (Dark Cloud 2, Oblivion, Diablo)... and Turn based can work just fine too (Older FFs, Dragon Quest series, SRPGs like FFT/Disgaea).